Facing the numerous perceived crises in Europe as well as the crisis of the very concept of Europe, which have been evoked socially and politically in recent years, the question arises which cultural resources Europe has at its disposal to respond creatively to the crises and understand them as a productive moment. This conceptual volume – next to describing and analyzing some of these crises – examines resilience as the ability to master crises. More specifically, it asks how the focus on cultural resources of resilience betters our understanding of the culture-specific approaches to crises in and of Europe.

This book argues that Europe’s literary and cultural traditions can be seen as the basic, connecting elements of European cultures, and can therefore serve as resources of resilience. Its contributions with their interdisciplinary approaches in literary and cultural studies as well as in history, economics and sociology, explore the interwoven European narratives and understand them as cultural techniques and strategies for the productive handling of manifold crisis experiences.